Tag: under-achieving

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Teaching Telling the Time – Putting the two hands together

So, you’ve introduced the hour hand and then introduced the minute hand. What next?

Now it’s time to put the two hands together. I have blue for my hour hand, and red for my minute hand, and around the clock I have the numbers 1 to 12 in blue, and the words five to thirty, quarter and half in red to help the children remember which hand goes with which whole number.  This is more for their confidence than a necessity, because we have made sure they are confident with hours and minutes first.

We move both hands round the clock at the same time so that the children can see that in the time it took the hour hand to move from 1 to 2, the minute hand went all the way round the clock.

We looked at the fact that when the hour hand is pointing exactly at a number (o’clock) the minute hand is always pointing at o’clock. When the hour hand is pointing halfway between two numbers (half past), the minute hand is always pointing a half past.

When the hour hand is between o’clock and quarter past, so is the minute hand – and now they know how to count the minutes to find out exactly what time between o’clock and quarter past it is.  The children now begin to realise that they can tell the time to the nearest five minutes. They can look at the hour hand first to work out the time more or less, and then the minute hand to add in the detail.

I’ve taught a few year 6 children to tell the time in this way. They had been mystified by the hands, the fact that the numbers had two values and by the ‘to’ and the ‘past’. More conventional ways of learning to tell the time had not worked for them, and they were feeling stupid that they couldn’t grasp something that their classmates understood.

By splitting the hands up, it took away a lot of their confusion. Suddenly it all made sense to them. Their confidence grew, which then had an impact on their feelings about maths lessons in general. Their teachers noted that they were participating more in class, and this helped them to improve in other areas of maths. And that’s why I really love my job.

For maths and English tutoring in the north Birmingham, Sandwell and Walsall areas, visit www.sjbteaching.com. For links to other interesting education related articles, come and Like my Facebook page.

Related posts: Teaching Number Bonds, A Multisensory Approach to Reading

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Why I love being self-employed (Part 6)

This reason follows on from the last, as it’s still about CPD. Two years ago I decided that I would like to learn British Sign Language – partly because I’ve always had an interest in communication, partly because as a language teacher I always enjoy trying out new languages, and partly because I really enjoy working with under-achieving children, and deaf children tend to under-achieve.

Having chosen the course I wanted, I eagerly scanned the list of adult education classes that came through my door, discounted all the ones that were on the far side of Birmingham, and all the ones that were on nights when I did private tuition, and was left with one on at 10am on Mondays. If I was employed full-time in a school I would have had to give up right there, but being self-employed I can choose my own hours, so I signed up for it.

Now, unlike most people I love Monday mornings. I can have a bit of a lie-in, a leisurely breakfast and I miss the morning rush hour. I get to start the week by being a learner not a teacher, so I can remind myself what it’s like to be in the position of the children in my class. And at the end of it all I come away with new skills and qualifications.